Kayvan Shrike: Combat Tactics vs. Fleet

Hey everyone!

I'm eager to meet you and play a few games. Over the summer, I've built a Dark Angels successor chapter with an Inquisitor Lord and Sisters from the WH rulebook as Allies. I was paging through the new SM Codex this afternoon and my gaze fell upon Kayvan Shrike. His Chapter Tactics rule replaces the 'Combat Tactics' rule with 'Fleet'. This intrigues me, as I've been eaten alive by 'Nid armies with the Fleet of Whatever rule before... the best I could do was stand my ground, fire, and wait to be overrun. And I swiftly lost objectives to dug in bugs.

I'm thinking about rebuilding the list, but am fond of the DA's codex rule that allows the bike squads to place teleport homing beacons for my termies (Ravenwing).

Maybe I'll get me a fig to represent ol' Shrike and find out if I like it better this way. What do you all think? IMHO this makes a SM army of the vanilla variety vastly more maneuverable, but this might only be in my head.

Yours,

Noah

Good ol' Shrike. As a Raven Guard player (currently rebuilding/painting my army) I'm quite familiar with Shrike.

Fleet is good, but really only matters for close combat units since everyone can "Run" these days. Regarding Nids and fleet, keep in mind that Nids are pretty much all dedicated close combat monsters, so fleet is very nasty for them. Space Marines, not so much since we lack a ton of close combat units. Assault Marines aren't going to win against dedicated close combat and Vanguard Vets are way to expensive to use (though they are fun). That being said, there is still something about being able to assault something 19-24 inches away that is just awesome.

Combat scouts also benefit from fleet but they are more for fluffy games then competitive. (I love them though!)

Where fleet is really scary is Assault Terminators. Once these hit the opponents line, the fleet means they have an assault range of 13-18 inches. Good luck avoiding that. Throwing them in a Land Raider Crusader gives them a decent shot at a first turn assault. LRC move + disembark + Fleet + Assault = 12+2+(1-6)+6 = 21-26 inches. This is expensive (650pts) but points well spent.

Definitely toy around with it before sinking a ton of money into it though.

well said Tim agree 100 %.

small correction though, you can only fit 8 Terminators in a Crusader if I'm not mistaken. But that is what combat squads are for.

Termies in a Land Raider Crusader... is this what I hear is called the "Alpha Strike"? Read about it on "Bald and Screaming"

Never could spend the dough to make one work, though...

Not sure to be honest.

No, that is not an alpha strike.

-Mike